The NFL can be harsh for backup quarterbacks

The NFL is a harsh environment, even for the game’s best players.

But that is especially true if you are a rookie backup quarterback.

No matter if you are the No. 1 overall selection entering a nationally televised game and leading your team to a historic victory despite having no practice reps, or a fifth-round selection entering a regionally televised game and putting up a performance not seen in the NFL in more than 40 years, you have one job.

Be ready because you never know when you will be called upon to play.

That lesson was on full display Sunday afternoon at Huntington Bank Field, when the Cleveland Browns opened the second half of the game with Shedeur Sanders at quarterback because Dillon Gabriel had suffered a concussion.

Sanders went on to complete just four-of-16 passes for 47 yards, threw an interception, took a pair of sacks, and finished with a passer rating of 13.5.

To put that into perspective:

• It is the lowest passer rating by a player with 15-plus pass attempts in their debut since Cleveland’s Brandon Weeden posted a 5.1 in Week 1 of the 2012 season.
• It was the 187th time since 1970 that a quarterback attempted at least 16 passes in their first game, according to The Athletic, and only one – Scott Stankavage with the Denver Broncos in 1984 – completed as few as four passes.

Naturally, the performance led to a stream of excuses for why Sanders struggled in the game, many of which focused on the idea that head coach Kevin Stefanski should have “given him practice reps during the week.”

The funny thing is, that is not how the NFL works, and the Browns should not be held to a standard that no other NFL team has to follow.

Josh Dobbs, who spent time with the Browns in training camp in 2023 before being traded to the Arizona Cardinals in a move that struck Browns Town to the core of its soul, knows a thing or two about being a backup quarterback.

Now with the New England Patriots, the sixth team he has been with in the regular season, Dobbs was profiled by The Athletic about what a backup quarterback does all week, knowing that they may never play in the upcoming game.

And guess what? Getting practice reps is not part of the equation:

“Some positions can just show up on Wednesday at 8 a.m. like, ‘All right, here we go for the week.’ But if you’re doing that as a quarterback, you’re always playing catch-up. And especially as the No. 2, since you don’t know if you’re going to get (practice) reps that week.”

Don’t just take Dobbs’ word about it, as several former players also weighed in via social media about what it is like to be a backup, starting with Luke McCown, a fourth-round draft pick by the Browns in 2004 who played for five teams across a 10-year career:

I think...